


Not Human

by motoroilfreeway



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies, Gen, M/M, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-17
Updated: 2013-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-04 23:45:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1087085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/motoroilfreeway/pseuds/motoroilfreeway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi is no different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Human

**Author's Note:**

> fuck me and my stupid plot bunnies that comes to haunt me at night when I'm watching The Walking Dead.  
> Also sort-of inspired from this pic http://data1.whicdn.com/images/90871942/large.jpg
> 
> UNBETA-ED BE WARNED

Eren sat on his bed, looking down at his lap as he listens to the people in the top speak through the speakers.

He wrung his hospital gown tighter in his lap as they scold him for trying to escape the facility.

“We were saddened to know that we lost one of our best, Lance Corporal Levi to one of our best test subjects. Eren, do you understand what we are trying to tell you?”

He doesn’t look up to the camera and its blinking red light next to the speaker on the corner of his room.

“Eren,”

He absentmindedly scratched at one of his arms as it began to itch.

The speaker was silent for a while and Eren wished it to remain as that for a while longer.

“We’re going to go through this again, then. Eren, listen. Listen.”

The last word was spoken with emphasis. Eren turned his head towards the camera, to show where his attention is but his eyes are still glued to the hospital gown he is still wringing at the moment.

“You are special. You are different. You are not human, like us.”

Not human like them.

Like Levi.

The man whom he looked down upon upon their first meeting---its not like its intended though—the man just happened to be a head shorter than him. He scowls a lot, calls him---almost everyone---a brat, talks about vulgar things like he was just talking about the weather.

Lance Corporal Levi, the other soldiers in the facility calls him.

They never failed to salute and call him sir every chance they’ve got. Even Eren almost wanted to do the same because of how intimated he feels whenever he’s close to the man but didn’t because he’s not one of them.

He’s not human, like they said.

Humans are born in a hospital---like him---but they are raised in a home with a mother and a father and go to school to learn to read and write with their human classmates.

Eren was raised in this facility, taught by someone to read and write simple words and his name. He learned to do these things alone, he had heard the word “classmates” from his picture books and his teacher---whose face he barely remembers now---but he never had one.

School is where humans spend most of their childhood. They grow up going there every day and sometimes they even find love.

Eren spent most of his _childhood_ in the facility. He never left and he goes from room to room to meet different kinds of people wearing the same thing; there are only three types of clothing he has seen so far—four, if you count his hospital gown----those black things the soldiers wear, the lab gowns the doctors does outside the rooms, and those thick things that cover them from head to toe similar to what _astronauts_ wear when they are in the room where Eren is, as they poke at his skin with needles or scalpels.

Love, he never put much thought to that before because he knows it’s impossible, with him being different and all; as what those people in the top of his room who speaks through his room’s speakers kept on reminding him whenever he talks about things like these.

He said _before_ , because Lance Corporal Levi taught him that.

He was introduced to him because he was told that this man would keep watch on him from now on. He thinks maybe that’s because of that incident that happened one time, when he got angry—he can never control his anger, even those people in the top of his room said so but they didn’t looked like they took action----and attacked one of those guys who enter his room to feed him.

He was not feeling well, he kept on telling him. Whatever is in the needle that they poked at his skin that day made him feel weird and hot. He feels like if he eats something from that tray it would just make him throw it all up later so he refused.

His feeder was insistent though, and shoved a spoonful at his mouth.

The spoon clacked painfully at his teeth and he saw red.

He screamed, spat and told him again that he doesn’t feel like eating and took the tray from him.

He hit him with the tray and his feeder instantly fell on the ground.

He is still angry though. There’s an itch that won’t just leave his body alone and he feels like it would sooth him if he hit him again.

So he did.

He hit him, again and again.

And again.

Until he could no longer see his head and soldiers started entering his room as they hold him. Eren succeeded in shrugging them off but the men holding him grew more and more until he cannot budge in their hands anymore.

One of those people in the top of his room came, clicked their tongue a lot and poked him with a needle.

He can’t remember the rest and here they are: Eren looking dumbly at the short, scowling man in front of him.

He heard one of the soldiers escorting him back to his room say, “Sir, can you do it? We all know that he’s a---”

The soldier was cut off with a “The least I can do if the worst ever happens is to kill him; I cannot assure anyone even those in brass anything less.”

He is sure now that he’s scared of Lance Corporal Levi.

One time he was eating his dinner and he felt a strange jolt in his nerves, causing him to flinch and accidentally dent the metal wall he is leaning on.

The soldiers assigned to watch him with the Corporal---he decided to call him that because Lance Corporal Levi was just too long and he don’t think calling him by his name will be appreciated much without any titles attached to it---immediately raised their guns at him, shouting and screaming, asking him questions if he really is just a monster after all, if he wants to kill them all now and the like.

These queries made Eren still in his movements and stare at them in equal shock and panic because are that what being not human means? Is being different makes him a monster?

He knows what the word monster means.

He saw in one of his story books once. Monsters are the enemies, the bad guys. They are killed by the good guys, by the humans.

Monsters kill people and didn’t he just…killed someone before?

His feeder never came to feed him anymore after that incident; he never bothered to look for him because he thought his feeder doesn’t like him anymore because he hit him with a food tray.

Maybe he never came to feed him anymore because he’s dead? Because he killed him?

Is that why they are calling him a monster now?

Is he a monster?

Maybe. He should ask those people in the top of his room later. If the soldiers didn’t kill him first here, that is.

He didn’t know he’s weeping until he found his voice to speak again but was interrupted by the Corporal who stood in front of him, hands raised in front of the soldiers who had their rifles out and pointing it at Eren.

“I said, calm down.” Eren heard him say.

“Corporal, Sir! Please stay away from him, he’s dangerous!” One of them says.

“No, I think it’s you guys who should stay the fuck away from him.”

“How can you say that?” one of them retorts in disbelief.

“My intuition.”

It ended at that because more people came into the room, with one of those people in the top of his room and told them off.

The Corporal simply stared him down as he was escorted by others back to him room to rest.

\---

Later that night, he heard someone call his name behind the door of his room.

“Are you awake, Eren?”

Eren swallowed, he knew that voice, anytime, anywhere. He can never mistake that for someone else.

“…yes…Sir,” he replies nervously.

“…are you okay?”

He blinked. Maybe he meant what happened in his dinner.

Is he okay? Even he can’t answer that. Their words are what bothered him the most because he knows simple gunshot wounds would immediately heal. Even a shot to his head never worked. A soldier tried that before and the people in the top of his room took him away.

Maybe that’s why he’s different. He doesn’t die—yet, because they haven’t discovered of the way so far---, he doesn’t age---his childhood had been a long time ago, he has seen people he’d known had their skins sag and leave the facility because they are “getting old” or are “taking a retirement soon”---, which is why he never felt nor understood what it’s like to be human or not different.

“Yes, sir, I’m okay.”

He would just go with that, all this thinking made him sleepy. He wanted this conversation to end soon. He sooner he satisfies the Corporal the faster he can go to sleep.

He thought the man left and he was in the middle of falling into unconsciousness when he heard his voice say, “If someone ever tries to hurt you, just know that I’m here to protect you, got that? I’m getting paid for that, after all…”

Protect him? Didn’t he say before he’s going to kill him?

Eren fell asleep before he got the chance to ask it out loud.

After that, Eren felt more at ease whenever he’s with the Corporal, to the point that he calls him Levi now. He would happily greet the man a good morning and a good night and talks to him a lot whenever the people in the top of his room is not bringing him from room to rooms and pokes needles at him, or puts him in machines and sinks him in differently coloured waters with strange odors.

He once told Levi of his dream about seeing the outside world, when the man offhandedly spoke of outside once.

“You wanna go outside?” He asked him.

Eren eagerly nodded his head as he started talking about the _ocean._ ”It’s a big body of water. Salty water where all the fish in the world lives! It’s so big that not all parts of it were even discovered so far!”

“…where did you even know all these shit?“  
  
“My books said so. And Armin!”

“Armin?”

“Yep!”

“What the fuck’s an Armin?”

“Armin is a name of a human, Levi.” Eren laughed as he tells him this.

“I know Armin is a name you smartass, I mean who is he?”

Eren told him that Armin is this blond kid who taught him how to read years ago. Armin is pretty much behind everything Eren can read and write.

“So where is this Armin now?”

“He left. He said he’s going to _retire_ and live with his grandchildren. Levi, what’s a retirement? Or is that retire?”

Levi grew silent after that.

Levi never answered his question.

\---

One night he just wakes up to Levi lightly slapping him awake.

“Eren, you said you wanna see the outside world? The ocean?”

Eren said yes and Levi took him out of his room.

Levi pulled him to strange part of the facility where he was forbidden to go. He told Levi this but he was ignored as Levi continued to fire his rifle at someone whoever gets in the way on the path.

They ran left then right then left again and then right until Eren almost closed his eyes when something brighter than the lights in the facility flashed at his eyes when he looked up.

He was outside.

He can see the tall white wires his one of his books called fences, a court, and cars—though they look bigger and have duller colours, not the bright ones he sees in his books---, even a helicopter!

Levi kept on pulling at him though so he pulled Levi to stop and tell him, “Levi, we’re outsi--”

He was cut off because he felt something strong grab him from behind, started dragging him away from Levi---Levi who was grabbed by soldiers and pulled him away from him too. His rifle was taken away when he raised it to the one grabbing Eren---, Eren tried to fight back though.

He kept on screaming Levi’s name as Eren was pulled back into the facility, the outside world slipping from his grasp again. He wept.

Levi is still outside and he can’t see what’s going on because the doors were immediately closed when he was pulled in.

He heard a couple of gunshots though.

\---

Now here he is, back in his room.

The people in the top of his room are scolding him for leaving with Levi.

They are telling him that it cannot be because he is different, he’s not a human.

“…and do you know what happens to humans who do, Eren?”

He looked up to the camera, confused.

This part is new. He never heard them tell him these before.

He shook his head.

His door opens and he turns his head towards it in surprise.

Soldiers held his door open for a moment before they push something inside.

That something is wearing black, but he can see the blood it spilled in his floor.

Eren felt his heart fall out of his chest and get stepped on.

It’s Levi.

He saw this happen to a couple of soldiers before too.

They rise back from the dead and eat the living. They are always hungry, and they are aggressive. They tried to eat Eren too but he lived despite the bites and his torn flesh always grew back.

Levi is now one of them.

His mouth is bloody, his grey eyes are no longer grey but as white as the rest of his eyes—his dark pupils made his eyes look scarier that before--, Eren noticed that his neck is gushing with blood.

“Levi…” He called to him.

Levi noticed him; he looked at his way and started snarling at him that made Eren wince.

Levi would never do that. Levi said he loves him, before, so he would never _snarl_ at him.

“Do you see that, Eren?” _Oh yes, he does._

“That’s because he’s just a human too. He’s no different from the other soldiers who died and came to life to feed on us.”

Levi started running towards him, Eren welcomes him with open arms as Levi grabbed the back of his head to pull him close---his neck close—to his mouth and started biting at his flesh. Eren flinched as he felt the familiar pain of feeling his flesh getting torn and an amount of his blood spraying out as Levi’s teeth pulls at his artery.

“Levi,” Eren whines in pain---it’s a miracle he can still speak at this point---and hugs him tighter, Levi continues to chew and tear more from his neck down to his collar bone.

“He is not going to hear you anymore, Eren. Do you get that? Eren, do you understand now?”

He nods and hugs Levi tighter.

“Do you understand now?”

“Yes! I’m sorry!” He shouts at the speaker as he started crying, then sobbing. His hold on Levi never faltered.

“Good. We wouldn’t want this to happen again now, do we? We cannot afford to lose good resources like this again.”

After that, Eren hears the speakers make that kind of noise that means the people in the top of his room are done talking. His door busts open and a shot was fired.

Levi falls into his arms.

His hands are around Levi’s shoulders now and they tighten.

His eyes are still flowing with tears and he sniffs.

“I’m sorry,”

He tells Levi’s corpse---eyes wide, mouth slightly agape and bloody---before the soldiers take him away. Eren was still bleeding when he was led out later too to get it patched up. It would heal later without a fail but the fact that it bleeds a lot and would make a mess of his room remains so they have to do something about it.

They’re right, Eren thinks. Levi is human, he’s not different.

He’s just like everyone else.

He’s nothing special.

Eren makes himself believe this as he was introduced to his new caretaker.

“This is Mikasa Ackerman. She will be watching you from now on, Eren.”

**Author's Note:**

> IDK what's with "levi is this, levi is that" summaries I came up with  
> and what the fuck's with the titles that have "human" in it  
> I feel dumb and shitty  
> Well, excuse me its almost 4 and my mum is nagging me to go the fuck to sleep and she's trYING TO LOOK INTO THE .DOC MUM STOP I'M ALMOST LEGAL I'M NOT 9 ANYMORE DAMNIT


End file.
